By Obi Nwakanma
In a quiet and obscure corner of the world; a little and hardly known place called Ameke Abam, in Abia State, a gruesome crime took place last December 29. Chidi Nwosu, a human rights activist and campaigner for democracy in the state was brutally murdered in his home.

The murder was execution style. According to reports, some time by midnight of that fateful day, his killers came, locked in his wife, five-year-old daughter and other relatives in the bathroom, and commenced a methodical torture of their victim. From the bathroom they could hear his tortured cries and pleas, and the final, lone bullet that silenced him permanently, straight to the temple; execution style.

His executioners wanted apparently to make a point of it; to use him as an example for those who may again dare to confront powerful people in Abia State. Even as they killed him, they dragged his lifeless body around his living room, smearing the floor with his blood, and, according to Amaka, his wife, laughing in uproarious mockery of the dead man. To put this simply, not even animals could kill a man with so much pleasure.

This is frightening in itself; the fact that we have created a bestial and unhinged society, brutalised by violence, and deadened to the very act itself, inured to a feeling or a consciousness of remorse at the taking of a life. Death is too easy and killers are now too easy to find.

The life of the Nigerian is worth horseshit.  This is what the killing of Chidi Nwosu says about this country. Igboland has become a brutish and terrifying place. It is the 17th century all over. We can only imagine the terror for the five-year-old daughter from that deadly night.

To be freed from where they had been locked only to see the mangled body of her father; twisted; drowned in an enormous pool of his own blood. Same goes for his wife forced to sad and untimely widowhood. In places where human life matters, there would be an immediate worry for their mental health and the quick provision of trauma counselling by the state and community health service to mother and child.

But, it does seem that the state itself has become a criminal agent. Where it is not complicit in criminal activity it is unwilling to prevent it.

There are many who suggest that Nwosu’s death is not unconnected with his running battle with certain key figures in the political and economic life of Abia State with whom he has engaged in a fierce, public, and occasionally bruising conflict. A particular angle to this story is intriguing: the late Nwosu was a leading pro-democracy activist in the South-East of Nigeria, and had founded the  Human Rights and Justice Foundation in Aba, a member of the South-Eastern Coalition of Civil and Democracy Rights Activists.

He was also the South-East co-coordinator of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), founded by Beko Ransome-Kuti. He was a major public voice against the spate of public kidnappings and frequently produced evidence linking these kidnappings to the highest realms of Abia’s political and economic life. He was a strong critic of  government policies. Indeed, one of his major triumphs was his successful bid to stop the sale of the Abia State Rubber Plantation in Ameke Abam. It was a sweet-heart deal for some people. But his death is unconscionable.

It is also in my mind a terrible indictment of the Nigerian media who have failed to draw attention, for whatever reason, to this terrible crime against a young public voice, a human rights advocate and a pro-democracy campaigner.

Perhaps, his death in the East is a less sanguine thing. But no death is shorn of sanguinary force. The saddest part is that the Abia State Police Command continues to detain Nwosu’s corpse on account, the police say, of their continuing investigation, which is not proceeding in any clear direction. No reporter, has, to my understanding, asked for further details, while Nwosu’s young family continues to mourn alone.

This should not be the price to pay for a young Nigerian who spent his life speaking out for the oppressed bravely and with conviction. Nwosu’s death must be a test case for this government’s commitment to justice and to the security of the life of Nigerians. The terrible insecurity and vulnerability of Nigerians was one of the central issues raised by some presidential aspirants during the recent party campaigns .

The Federal Government must move to confront these levels of crime directed against Nigerians from powerful men, patrons of killers, kidnappers, and arsonists if it wants to be taken seriously. It must not be seen to shield powerful men over their crimes. The recent killing of the Ibadan motor park denizen,  a sort of “Say Tokyo Kid,” Lateef Salako (Eleweomo) certainly got more press mileage.

The killers of Nwosu are likely to go free. So have, it seems, even the killers of Nigeria’s Attorney-General, Bola Ige, a much more powerful man. But there is a point that must be borne in mind: a buried crime is the most difficult thing to hide. Like a hidden body, it always bobs up.

There is also another important thing to bear in mind: when a state begins to seem incapable of defending and protecting even the least of its citizens, the citizens are compelled to resort to self-defence; the state system collapses, and law and order gives way to tit-for-tat.
The government  must direct the police to uncover the killers of Chidi Nwosu, a human rights activist.